Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Note: if you see last week's poll it's a cache thing, I think. Refresh should cure it.

Hurray, that's the poll hurray. If you're interested, you can see all the individual ballots here.

Yes, that's Michigan #2. Full disclosure: last night I sent out an email reminding voters that, unlike the other polls out there, the BlogPoll has a specific mandate to rank the teams in order of who is "best," whether you arrive at that conclusion by resume or another method, and that rematch concerns should not influence voting. (This would seem fairly straightforward since the BlogPoll isn't, you know, able to set up a rematch. But one of the oddest things about the BCS-aftermath articles were quotes from AP voters like this:

AP poll voter Michael Vega of The Boston Globe said he wasn't against a rematch but found it hard to justify one this time.

"I had to reconcile a fundamental problem with giving Michigan a chance to win the national championship when it didn't even win a conference championship," he said.

Uh... for a newspaper guy you're not up on current events, Mr. Vega.)

We do have two voters who succumbed to minor Harris-ism by breaking up the OSU-Michigan-UF trifecta in the first three spots: 50-Yard Lion ranks Michigan behind both Florida and LSU while Bevo Sports has LSU #2, Michigan #3, and Florida #4.

Another discrepancy of note: Wisconsin keeps creeping up despite having proven little in the other polls, but BlogPollers knocked the Badgers down a slot behind Oklahoma. Also, USC was hurt less by its loss than in other polls.

Risers: It was mostly just sliding up where others fell, but Wake Forest did leap Virginia Tech to become the highest-ranked ACC team. As mentioned, Oklahoma leapt Wisconsin.

Fallers: USC took a four-spot tumble after gacking against UCLA, as did Rutgers. Georgia Tech finally slouched its way out of the poll.

Wack Ballot Watchdog: Suspended this week.

Now on to the extracurriculars. First up are the teams which spur the most and least disagreement between voters as measured by standard deviation. Note that the standard deviation charts halt at #25 when looking for the lowest, otherwise teams that everyone agreed were terrible (say, Eastern Michigan) would all be at the top.

Ballot math: First up are "Mr. Bold" and "Mr. Numb Existence." The former goes to the voter with the ballot most divergent from the poll at large. The number you see is the average difference between a person's opinion of a team and the poll's opinion.

Mr. Bold is Eagle in Atlanta, and it's easy to see why: USC plummets from #2 to ... wait for it ... #17 after their UCLA loss. Rutgers also drops nine after a triple overtime loss at West Virginia, who re-enters the poll at #21, three spots behind Rutgers. Having all those teams so low makes a lot of other teams berry, berry high and results in "Mr. Bold."

USC... #17? Can we get an explanation on that?

Mr. Numb Existence is Double Extra Pointagain. For the fourth time. Uncanny or a cynical attempt to get attention? You make the call!

Next we have the Coulter/Krugman Award and the Straight Bangin' Award, which are again different sides of the same coin. The CKA and SBA go to the blogs with the highest and lowest bias rating, respectively. Bias rating is calculated by subtracting the blogger's vote for his own team from the poll-wide average. A high number indicates you are shameless homer. A low number indicates that you suffer from an abusive relationship with your football team.

The CK Award is also Eagle In Atlanta's. Going for a clean sweep of the nasty ones, he is. Boston College #19 doesn't seem too offensive, though.

Straight Bangin' Award is Burnt Orange Nation for the second straight week for ranking the Longhorns a spot worse than the poll at large. This is probably not a sign of mental illness. Moving on.

Swing is the total change in each ballot from last week to this week (obviously voters who didn't submit a ballot last week are not included). A high number means you are easily distracted by shiny things. A low number means that you're damn sure you're right no matter what reality says.

Mr. Manic-Depressive is Badger Sports. Why? They forgot about Oklahoma last week.

Mr. Stubborn is Frank McGrath, who bumped last week's losers down only a tiny bit.